In the late 80s and early 90s the death metal scene was essentially created by a handful of talented, creative musicians with a love for the extreme. Nearly every “must own” death metal release was recorded between 1988 and 1992. Bands like Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Obituary, Deicide and Entombed created the sound that fans around the world love and still try to emulate to this day. In the mid 90s nearly all of these originators changed, they went from being inventive musicians to bands just trying to earn a buck with music that was completely different from what made them popular to begin with.

In recent years a new trend has started seeing many of these bands who went from death metal legends to boring bands spewing generic filth all of a sudden realizing that the music they’d been creating for the past decade sucked and they finally woke up and started to write shit their old school die hard fans actually want to hear. Cannibal Corpse opened up a lot of eyes with the release of Kill, their first quality release in more than a decade. Obituary unleashed their finest album in ages with the release of Xecutioner’s Return. Deicide returned to respectability with The Stench Of Redemption.

The talk leading up to the release of Entombed’s Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments) was that Entombed was abandoning the shitty sound they’d developed over the past decade and were going to “return to their roots.” As soon as I heard that I got an instant hard on as thoughts of a new Left Hand Path and Clandestine danced through my head. To say I feel very deflated having heard the new release would be a definite understatement.

The current line-up consists of founding members LG Petrov on vocals and Alex Hellid on guitars with newcomers Nico Elgstrand of Terra Firma on bass and Olle Dahlstedt of Misery Loves Co. on drums. Two out of five ain’t bad, right? Ehhh… Nicke Andersson has moved on to form the old school death metal act Death Breath, Uffe Cederlund is in death metal band Murder Squad and who the fuck knows what’s up with Lars Rosenberg. This leaves Entombed with only two fifths of the creative force that created two of the finest albums in death metal history, and that’s just not good enough.

Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments) is 10 tracks of death rock more in the vein of Wolverine Blues than Left Hand Path. Songs like "Serpent Saints", "Amok" and "The Dead, The Dying And The Dying To Be" definitely have the deathrock vibe of Wolverine Blues; high paced, energetic and groovy, however, much like the songs on Wolverine Blues, they’re also completely unmemorable, as soon as the song is over I forget what they sound like.

Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments) isn’t without it’s moments of brilliance, "Masters Of Death" occasionally pays homage to old school extreme metal with blast beats, LG employing a dark raspy black metal-like snarl but the track itself falls short. "Thy Kingdom Coma" sounds like a companion piece to "Full Of Hell" and "Out Of Hand" from Wolverine Blues. Other than that, Entombed is more miss than hit with the remainder of the album.

I do have to give them credit for creating production that sounds like old school Entombed, the music is well played and there are no major flaws with the recording itself, but none of that matters as Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments) is just so lifelessly dull. Everything that Entombed did to make themselves great in the early 90s they’ve completely lost over the past 15 years.

I guess if you’ve bought into the band’s sound over the past 15 years you’ll probably like this disc, but for anyone hoping for another Clandestine, Left Hand Path or even Wolverine Blues, you’ll be greatly disappointed by this effort. This disc is not even worth picking up even if it’s $2 in a bargain bin which I’m sure it’ll probably wind up soon enough.

Review byTeufel